-Where to begin?
Um, we've waited a long time to chat with Bob Haldeman.
And now we have the opportunity, and, uh, the
question is where to start.
Here you were, you worked four years in Washington as Nixon's
number two man--
Nixon's SOB, as you called yourself.
Dick Nixon never went to Key Biscayne without you.
He never went anywhere without you.
-Pretty close to right.
-What you're accusing yourself of is a cloudy crystal ball.
That's hardly the mea culpa that the American public
thinks it's entitled to.
That's the issue.
-Well, maybe the American public's wrong.
I know in my own heart, and I know in my own head, precisely
what I did.
I know precisely why I did it.
MALE SPEAKER [OFFSCREEN]: OK.
-And I know that I made some mistakes.
I deeply regret those mistakes.
MALE SPEAKER [OFFSCREEN]: As Richard Nixon's right-hand
man, he was the one most often recorded on the tapes, and
they destroyed him.
-I had the rare privilege for four years of serving on the
White House staff under one of America's greatest presidents.
MALE SPEAKER [OFFSCREEN]: Former White House
chief-of-staff HR Haldeman found guilty today on five
counts in the Watergate cover-up trial.
-Do you regret what happened, and what you did?
-Oh, sure.
The country lost motion.
Uh, a lot of the good things we were working on in the way
of domestic reforms, uh, were lost in the mess.
Uh, you can't help but regret, uh, an aftermath of that kind.
A lot of good people had their lives spoiled in the process.
MALE SPEAKER [OFFSCREEN]: John Ehrlichman has finished his
statements.
He was then returned to the holding room.
Rather a strange phrase, Nelson, the holding room.
Give's you an ide-- idea that they're holding a chemical or
a bacterium or something.
MALE SPEAKER [OFFSCREEN]: Former White House domestic
affairs adviser, John Ehrlichman, four counts--
guilty.
-Uh, the references to like an era of criminality, or like
people there were trying to rape the
country of its democracy.
I mean, I just don't see it that way.
-Chapin was linked in several reports to the Watergate case,
alleged sabotage of the Democratic
presidential campaign.
MALE SPEAKER [OFFSCREEN]: Chapin today was found guilty
of lying to the Watergate grand jury.
-I don't think you can take that little piece of history,
which may have been the darkest days of Richard
Nixon's career, and construct from that a mosaic that tells
you all about that man.
[film projector noise]
[crowds cheering]
[MUSIC - TRACY ULLMAN, "THEY DON'T KNOW"]
EARL WARREN [OFFSCREEN]: You, Richard Milhous Nixon, do
solemnly swear--
-I, Richard Milhous Nixon, do solemnly swear--
EARL WARREN [OFFSCREEN]: --that you'll faithfully
execute the office--
RICHARD NIXON [OFFSCREEN]: --that I will faithfully
execute the office--
EARL WARREN [OFFSCREEN]: --of President
of the United States--
RICHARD NIXON [OFFSCREEN]: --of President
of the United States--
EARL WARREN [OFFSCREEN]: --and will, to the
best of your ability--
RICHARD NIXON [OFFSCREEN]: --and will, to
the best of my ability--
EARL WARREN [OFFSCREEN]: --preserve
protect, and defend--
RICHARD NIXON [OFFSCREEN]: --preserve,
protect, and defend--
EARL WARREN [OFFSCREEN]: --the Constitution
of the United States.
RICHARD NIXON [OFFSCREEN]: --the Constitution of the
United States.
EARL WARREN [OFFSCREEN]: So help you, God.
RICHARD NIXON [OFFSCREEN]: So help me, God.
[applause]
[music - "hail to the chief"]
-The new president was in his office here at the White House
at 7:30 this morning, before anyone else on his staff, and
after only about four hours sleep.
He's felt for sometime that he could do this job pretty well,
and he was eager to get at it.
-President-elect Nixon today named another long time aide,
HR Haldeman, to be a White House assistant.
-Haldeman, a Los Angeles advertising executive, served
as chief-of-staff for the Nixon campaign.
DAN RATHER [OFFSCREEN]: Haldeman is the closest thing
to an alter ego the president has, noted for his
conservative views, his crewcut, and his nonstop home
movie taking.
HR HALDEMAN [OFFSCREEN]: It was just an extremely exciting
time for all of us.
It was terribly hard work, and very, very
long difficult hours.
But it was exciting because you were building something.
There was no great ideological thrust or, uh, noble ambition
involved in this, and no thought at all of, of, uh,
becoming permanently involved in either politics or
government.
It was, it was a thing where I felt it would be an
interesting side experience, where I could make a
contribution, and that something would be a learning
experience, and an interesting experience for me.
So that's, that's why I did it.
-The White House staff, as it evolves, I think you'll find
will be smaller than it's been in the past.
I know you'll find it'll be probably the youngest one in
history-- certainly one of the youngest.
MALE SPEAKER [OFFSCREEN]: Also named as a special assistant
was another ad man, 27-year-old Dwight Chapin, who
served as Mr. Nixon's personal aide.
DWIGHT CHAPIN [OFFSCREEN]: You got to keep in mind I was 27
years old at that point.
And we'd just gone through this campaign, and I was just
waiting to see what unfolded.
The day that I went in and interviewed for the job, and I
met this young 34-year-old crewcut guy by
the name of Bob Haldeman.
And Bob Haldeman changed my life.
I've never laughed as much as when I worked in the Nixon
White House.
The, the sense of humor was the leveling factor.
Things which'd--
messes we would find ourselves in, or whatever it might be.
-I think a lot of the younger staff people here find that he
can far excel, uh, them in terms of energy and stamina.
HR HALDEMAN [OFFSCREEN]: I took a camera on all my
trips-- a super 8--
and I have quite a collection of film.
-John Ehrlichman, a 43-year-old Seattle lawyer,
who directed Nixon's campaign tour, will have a broad
advisory role in the Nixon administration.
-I think this first year will be seen as
basically a time of reform.
-Ehrlichman is the president's chief aide for domestic
affairs, understudy of Haldeman, whom he has known
since college.
JOHN EHRLICHMAN [OFFSCREEN]: I was not a passionate Nixon
person, uh, going in.
Probably if, if some college friend had invited me to go
and dance for John Kennedy, I might have gone.
There were very few illusions about Richard Nixon, I think,
among the senior staff-- particularly
as we got into things.
Uh, a good deal of kind of wry humor about his, uh,
mannerisms, and his foibles, and his prejudices.
Nevertheless, you're, you work for the President of the
United States.
He's the only president around.
Uh, you all elected him.
Uh, we all work for him, and it's up to us to make it work.
HR HALDEMAN [OFFSCREEN]: It was a very
unnatural kind of life.
And, um, you had the feeling you were in the middle of a
great big, brilliantly lighted, badly
run television show.
I was taking a home movie of this throughout.
JOHN EHRLICHMAN [OFFSCREEN]: I advanced the
first trip to Europe.
Uh, eight countries, and, and, uh, I found myself hobnobbing
with the King of Belgium, and the Pope, and all these folks,
and, and it got to be very heady, very fast.
[speaking italian]
[applause]
MALE SPEAKER [OFFSCREEN]: Hello.
How are you?
BARBARA WALTERS [OFFSCREEN]: Their critics call them the
Germans, and describe their office as the Berlin Wall.
I'm speaking of President Nixon's chief White House
advisers, Henry Kissinger, John Ehrlichman, and HR--
for Harry Robbins--
Haldeman.
Everyone these days knows who Henry Kissinger is.
John Ehrlichman is the president's assistant for
domestic affairs.
But HR Haldeman's job is not an easy, tidy one to describe.
And of the three men, he has, been by his own choice, the
least visible to the public.
He's the only one of the three never to have given a
television interview, until now.
His friends talk of his brilliance, his efficiency,
his total dedication to the president, and his lack of
personal egotism or jealousy.
His critics call him cold, arrogant, hostile to the
press, inaccessible.
This interview was filmed a week ago in Mr. Haldeman's
office at the White House.
You have no calendar of your own.
You, you really follow the president's day.
You're available, as I understand it, from 7:00 in
the morning on, and on, and on.
What does this do to your personal life?
-Well, it, uh, poses some problems in it sometimes.
But, uh, I have, fortunately, uh, a very understanding wife,
and, and four very interested and understanding children.
BARBARA WALTERS [OFFSCREEN]: Do your sons want you to grow
your hair longer?
-[LAUGHS] I was afraid you'd probably ask that.
My--
you've probably seen the picture of my sons that we
sent out for Christmas.
But, uh, because my older son has, what I would call, very
long hair, and my younger son has pretty long hair.
BARBARA WALTERS [OFFSCREEN]: They don't look like daddy, if
that's what you mean.
-They don't.
But, uh, I've faced the fact that, uh, they're the ones
that are in style, and I'm the one that's out of step on, uh,
hair styling.
And, uh, I'm afraid they're right and I'm wrong on that
one.
-You have said--
I'm using one of your quotations again--
"I often find it fascinating to ponder by what standards
history will judge Nixon when all the partisan battles are
over." Well, how do you think he will be judged?
-If he has the opportunity to move ahead with what he's
trying to do, I think there isn't any doubt he'll be
judged as one of the great presidents.
WALTER CONKRITE [OFFSCREEN]: Good morning.
Man is about to launch himself on a trip to the moon, with
the expectation of landing there.
Man going to the moon here this morning, from this
Florida launch complex aboard that Saturn rocket.
The rocket will go, will put the men into orbit 115 miles
above the Earth for one and a half orbits.
And then the third stage--
[music playing]
BRUCE MCCANDLESS [OFFSCREEN]: Uh, go ahead, Mr. President.
This is Houston.
Out.
-Hello, Neil and Buzz.
I'm talking to you by telephone from the Oval Room
at the White House.
And this certainly has to be the most historic telephone
call ever made from the White House.
And as you talk to us from the Sea of Tranquility, it
inspires us to redouble our efforts to bring peace and
tranquility to Earth.
For one priceless moment, in the whole history of man, all
the people on this Earth are truly one--
one in their pride in what you have done.
WALTER CONKRITE [OFFSCREEN]: Armstrong is on the moon--
Neil Armstrong, 38-year-old American, standing on the
surface of the moon, on this, July 20, 1969.
NEIL ARMSTRONG [OFFSCREEN]: That's one small step for man.
One giant leap for mankind.
DWIGHT CHAPIN [OFFSCREEN]: A typical day for me.
Haldeman would pick me up around 7:15.
He-- the car would get Bob.
Then it would get Larry Higby, Bob's aide.
And then it would swing by my house, and they'd end at the
White House.
I am responsible for the scheduling, and also for the
president's daily activities.
Our thing was a machine, and I knew my place.
A-- it really reflected a lot about Richard Nixon, the
degree to which he wanted things controlled.
JOHN EHRLICHMAN [OFFSCREEN]: It literally was from 6
o'clock in the morning until 9 o'clock at night,
every day of the week--
and Saturdays and Sundays, too.
And that pace was unremitting, totally consuming, for
somebody like me.
HR HALDEMAN [OFFSCREEN]: I was very tough on people, feeling
that I had to be.
There's something about the presidency that--
I've been ridiculed for my picking up to Navy term of
zero defects.
But you do have to operate as close to zero
defect as you can.
And I was not overly concerned with whether people like me,
as a result of it or not.
I was only concerned with the result the president wanted
got carried out.
-Why didn't you burn the tapes?
Surely you talked about it.
-Well, I-- the question came up, at one point, should the
tapes be destroyed?
And my strong recommendation was that they
should not be destroyed.
-That was a mistake, wasn't it, Mr. Haldeman?
HR HALDEMAN [OFFSCREEN]: Yes, sir.
I would say that given what we now know, and what's now
happened, that, that it was a disastrous thing to have done.
But there was never a thought that one word of those tapes
would be played in public, or be played to other people.
And when it got to the point of having to release them, or
of having even to consider the possibility of releasing them,
they should have been, in my opinion now, it should've have
been destroyed.
-I had no idea about the taping system.
No.
-No.
Never.
MALE SPEAKER [OFFSCREEN]: John, you didn't know about
the, uh, the tape maker--
the taping system in the Oval Office, did you?
-No.
MALE SPEAKER [OFFSCREEN]: Did it come as a surprise?
-It did.
Our White House staff was essentially a dysfunctional
organization.
I think Nixon believed that he didn't have to share every
piece of information with everybody.
Listening to the tapes is very revealing, because he's
talking to others about me, and what I should know and
what he didn't want me to know.
And he did the same thing with Kissinger and the same thing
with a lot of people.
Um, several times I, I recall his saying to
me, don't tell Henry.
He kept little water-tight compartments of information,
and it didn't work very well.
-Dan Rather, who has closely observed the Nixon presidency,
reports now on the first year in office.
DAN RATHER [OFFSCREEN]: In 12 months, Richard Nixon proved
himself to have been underestimated.
He emerged as a shrewd political manager, with a
chance to be remembered as a consummate politician, in the
mold of Woodrow Wilson or Franklin Roosevelt.
Nixon-- the supremely disciplined and
introspective loner.
His mind--
methodical, cautious.
Given to worry?
Yes.
But never, never let the worry show.
Control--
the byword for every public appearance.
Calculated non-flamboyance.
Make up to cover the beard, special hair tonic to cover
grey at the temples, and a ready smile to cover worry.
One year does not make or break any president.
A first year does set directions.
What the past year has proven is that the principal
directions of the Nixon presidency are--
cutting back commitments abroad, reforming the
machinery of government at home, and laying political
foundations that will have Republicans replacing
Democrats as the majority party in the decade ahead.
HR HALDEMAN [OFFSCREEN]: President Nixon's primary
focus, his own personal attention, was almost totally
dedicated to ending the war in Vietnam.
Nixon tried to move into his committed areas of welfare
reform, some areas of economic reform, and all that.
But the one factor which really totally overrode all of
those factors was Vietnam.
DWIGHT CHAPIN [OFFSCREEN]: I had been the office, in the
president's office, several different occasions where he
had a handkerchief out, and was wiping tears out of his
eyes, and he'd been there writing notes to parents of
kids who'd been killed.
So I came from it, that the president was doing the very
best he could, and that he was trying to end it.
And that he-- so I, I didn't have much compassion for the
people in the streets.
I respect their right to demonstrate, because that's,
that's, you know, that's what the country's about.
But, I mean, I was of the opinion that the demonstrators
prolonged the war.
They didn't help us get out.
They made it worse.
And that's just how I view it.
[music playing]
MALE SPEAKER [OFFSCREEN]: What do you want?
CROWD [OFFSCREEN]: Peace.
MALE SPEAKER [OFFSCREEN]: When do you want it?
CROWD [OFFSCREEN]: Now.
MALE SPEAKER [OFFSCREEN]: What do you want?
CROWD [OFFSCREEN]: Peace.
MALE SPEAKER [OFFSCREEN]: When do you want it?
CROWD [OFFSCREEN]: Now.
MALE SPEAKER [OFFSCREEN]: Good evening.
Marching behind flags, and banners, and picket signs
demanding peace now, at least 200,000 anti-war protesters
jammed the streets of Washington today, in what was
probably the biggest peace demonstration to be held since
they began six years ago.
Despite the huge crowd, no Nixon administration official
spoke at the rally or appeared on the capitol hill platform.
[MUSIC - JOHN DENVER, "THE STRANGEST DREAM"]
MALE SPEAKER [OFFSCREEN]: What do you want?
CROWD [OFFSCREEN]: Peace.
MALE SPEAKER [OFFSCREEN]: When do you want it?
CROWD [OFFSCREEN]: Now.
MALE SPEAKER [OFFSCREEN]: What do you want?
CROWD [OFFSCREEN]: Peace.
MALE SPEAKER [OFFSCREEN]: When do you want it?
CROWD [OFFSCREEN]: Now.
-What is important is not just that we are here today,
because we have been here before, you and I. We've been
here before and we've been other places.
And what we have to decide is that we're going to keep
coming back until this war ends.
MALE SPEAKER [OFFSCREEN]: Yeah.
-Good evening, my fellow Americans.
A few weeks ago I saw demonstrators carrying signs
reading, "Lose in Vietnam.
Bring the boys home." Well, one of the strengths of our
free society is that any American has a right to reach
that conclusion, and to advocate that point of view.
But as President of the United States, I would be untrue to
my oath of office if I allowed the policy of this nation to
be dictated by the minority who hold that point of view,
and who try to impose upon the nation by mounting
demonstrations in the street.
And so tonight, to you, the great, silent majority of my
fellow Americans, I ask for your support.
I pledged in my campaign for the presidency to end the war
in a way that we could win the peace.
I pledge to you tonight that I shall meet this responsibility
with all of the strength and wisdom I can command--
in accordance with your hopes, mindful of your concerns,
sustained by your prayers.
Thank you, and good night.
[interposing voices]
[music playing]
RICHARD NIXON [OFFSCREEN]: World War I?
Right?
-Right.
RICHARD NIXON [OFFSCREEN]: Well, we're grateful
[inaudible].
Thank you for coming out.
Very grateful.
BILL GILL [OFFSCREEN]: It was Irish night at the White
House, a salute to the visiting prime minister of the
Emerald Isles with dances from Castle Shannon.
Yet the crowd could hardly wait for the truly big event
of the evening.
The president and Mrs. Nixon ended the suspense in a
lighthearted mood.
-I understand that I'm supposed to make a surprise
announcement.
[laughter]
-The difficulty is that every time I'm supposed to make a
surprise announcement, I find that some way it's leaked
before I get to make it.
Even though the information may have leaked out, until I
say it, it's not official.
[laughter]
-And so tonight Mrs. Nixon and I are very honored to announce
the engagement of our daughter Tricia to Mr.
Edward Cox of New York.
[applause]
[music playing]
-And now to commemorate this event, we have as our special
guests tonight the Ray Conniff Singers.
It's very difficult to describe them.
Most of you have heard them.
And if the music is square, it's because I like it square.
[laughter and applause]
-President Nixon, stop bombing human beings, animals, and
vegetation.
You go to church on Sundays, and pray to Jesus Christ.
If Jesus Christ were here tonight, you would dare drop
another bomb.
Bless the Berrigans, and bless Daniel Ellsberg.
Two, three, four.
[MUSIC - RAY CONNIFF SINGERS, "MA, HE'S MAKING EYES AT ME"]
-"The New York Times" began publishing a partial text of
assiduously prepared study in the Pentagon relating to the
origins of American involvement in Vietnam.
Five days later, "The Washington Post" began
publishing excerpts from the same Pentagon report.
On June 22, "The Boston Globe" joined the "Times" and the
"Post," and published additional
material from the study.
The documents printed in the papers were classified, which
means, according to the government, they were not to
be made public.
[music - ray conniff singers]
-A single name has been mentioned most prominently as
the possible source of the "Times" documents.
Daniel Ellsberg, a former State Department and Pentagon
planner-- and of late something of a phantom
figure--
-I think we cannot at all let the officials of the executive
branch determine for us what it is that the public needs to
know about how well, and how, they are
discharging their functions.
[music - ray conniff singers]
[applause]
-The Pentagon report is only the beginning in itself, an
incomplete history.
There will be much more.
The temptation will be great for a witch hunt, the
unmasking of villains, and the manufacturer of scapegoats.
-The president was furious.
Kissinger was furious.
It was very intense.
It--
it was a little like walking on eggshells.
I mean, it was just a tense, tense time.
-The irony of the Pentagon Papers is that they were not
critical of Nixon.
They were very critical of the Johnson administration.
But Nixon was committed to the proposition that classified
documents, secret documents, ought not to be stolen and
given away.
Some of these documents actually did get into the
hands of foreign governments, as well as part of them
getting in the papers.
And the president and Kissinger were very upset that
this man would be doing these kinds of things.
-You were so mad at Ellsberg.
This dirty guy.
I don't have to tell you or anyone else that the-- that
the, the anger and resentment toward, toward Ellsberg was
near hysterical levels in the White House.
-This didn't develop into any pathological hatred of, of
Daniel Ellsberg.
It developed into a rather coldblooded, and in my, uh,
view, uh, uh, misguided, uh, attempt to discredit Ellsberg
in the public eye.
Because at the time Daniel Ellsberg was being made a
public hero, and there was an effort to try to show that
this man was not necessarily the, the great savior of the
nation that, that many were portraying him as.
JOHN EHRLICHMAN [OFFSCREEN]: I think I changed during the
time I was at the White House.
I'm not sure whether it was for the better.
But it probably was not at the time that I was there.
When you first go in there, at least when I first went in
there, I asked a lot of hard questions.
Why, why are we doing it this way?
What's the, what's the
justification for this program?
Why are we spending this money?
Uh, why does this fellow work here?
You know, those kinds of things.
After a couple years, I, I felt like I was defending the
status quo rather than challenging it, and trying to
get it changed, and repaired, and made better.
And that
was not satisfying me at all.
I had a very clear sense that I was becoming part of the
problem after a while, rather than the solution.
And I remember one day thinking, I had just moved
that pile of firewood from over there to over here.
And today I was going to have to move it from over here back
to over there.
And thinking to myself how strange it was to be coming to
this historic place, and dealing with these great
issues, seeing the President of the United States two or
three times a day, and feeling like I was just in the
business of moving cordwood around.
And I thought to myself, well, if it's come to that point,
[LAUGHING] it's time I was out of here.
Uh, I let Nixon and Haldeman talk me into staying.
-Good evening.
I have requested this television time tonight to
announce a major development in our efforts to build a
lasting peace in the world.
I sent Dr. Kissinger, my assistant for national
security affairs, to Peking during his recent world tour
for the purpose of having talks with Premier Zhou Enlai.
The announcement I shall now read is being issued
simultaneously in Peking and in the United States.
Premier Zhou Enlai, on behalf of the government of the
People's Republic of China, has extended an invitation to
President Nixon to visit China at an appropriate
date before May 1972.
President Nixon has accepted the invitation with pleasure.
MALE SPEAKER [OFFSCREEN]: For two decades every American
president has been presented to the Chinese people as the
archenemy, as the personification of hated
capitalism and imperialism.
Most Asians recognize this development as a momentous
step that can change the whole complexion of
this part of the world.
DWIGHT CHAPIN [OFFSCREEN]: I found out I was going to China
from Bob Haldeman.
I was the acting
chief-of-protocol for that trip.
And, uh, it was one of the great mountaintop experiences.
I-- the, the thing--
the thing about the flight to China was-- one of the things
was-- that it was just kind of surreal.
The plane was taking off to go to China, and we've got a
television set there watching us take off.
I mean, everything about that trip was televised.
I mean, it was a production from start to finish.
MALE SPEAKER [OFFSCREEN]: The president will journey to
Peking in the dead of winter, a season especially severe in
the Chinese capital.
Following the joint announcement, issued at 4:00
AM, Peking time, the White House news secretary
reemphasized Mr. Nixon's stated purpose for becoming
the first American president to visit mainland China.
-As President Nixon has pointed out on a number of
occasions, he shall try in the meetings with the leaders of
the People's Republic of China to seek a new direction in the
relationship between our two countries, and to end the
isolation of our two great peoples from each other.
MALE SPEAKER [OFFSCREEN]: Four hours after his arrival, Mr.
Nixon is taken to meet Chairman Mao Tse-tung.
The fact that Chairman Mao arranged an immediate meeting
with the American chief of state in his home is
considered significant by diplomatic observers.
MALE SPEAKER [OFFSCREEN]: Included is an evening at the
Peking Opera to see a ballet, "The Red Detachment of Women,"
that depicts the overthrow of a cruel landlord by female
communist partisans.
MALE SPEAKER [OFFSCREEN]: The skies have been somber in
Peking all day, and in the afternoon a light
snow began to fall.
In the city streets, men and women with brooms began
sweeping it up almost flake by flake.
And it seemed to have no dimming effect at all on the
exuberance of President Nixon and Premier Zhou Enlai in
their third long conversation.
FEMALE SPEAKER [OFFSCREEN]: Sir?
FEMALE SPEAKER [OFFSCREEN]: Thank you.
DWIGHT CHAPIN [OFFSCREEN]: We all have little kit--
kids the same age.
I mean, people have ice skating parties.
There would be--
we have just all kinds of things.
And we're in our 30s, and we're, you know, living.
There were pranks.
There were these incredible friendships.
And it was our, our senses of humor and our personalities
that it made it all, you know, nice.
-The illegal bugging apparently was one, uh, aim of
a team which broke into the Democratic National
Headquarters in Washington during the weekend.
And the political backgrounds of the men charged in the case
have kicked up a storm.
Barry Serafin has the story.
BARRY SERAFIN [OFFSCREEN]: The Watergate Apartment Hotel
office complex in Washington has a fortress like appearance
that is noted for its security.
But the burglars penetrated that security to break into
the sixth floor offices of the Democratic National Committee.
Material from files there was found in their possession.
Democratic spokesmen called the file
information very mundane.
Here and in the men's rooms in the adjoining hotel, police
confiscated expensive photographic and electronic
eavesdropping gear, as well as several thousand dollars in
consecutively numbered bills.
-Apparently about five men, one of them clearly under
contract and employed by both the Republican National
Committee and the campaign to re-elect the president.
Uh, this, I thought, this administration was a law and
order administration.
And I've never seen such a crass violation of individual
rights as, uh, we have seen in this instance.
-I must say that it's the, uh, legacy of years of wire
tapping, and snooping, and violation of privacy in which
the government, itself, has been too deeply involved.
[crowd cheering]
RICHARD NIXON [OFFSCREEN]: Well, I--
I, again, proudly accept your nomination for President of
the United States.
[crowd cheering]
RICHARD NIXON [OFFSCREEN]: And let us pledge ourselves to win
an even greater victory this November, in 1972.
[crowd cheering]
-Four more years.
Four more years.
[MUSIC - MIKE CURB CONGREGATION, "NIXON NOW"]
MALE SPEAKER [OFFSCREEN]: President Nixon's victory in
the election is surely one of the biggest landslides ever.
Let's look at the popular vote now, with
almost all of it counting.
With 98% of the precincts reporting, it's Nixon--
45,800,000.
McGovern--
28,400,000.
This adds up to a record breaking 521 electoral votes
for President Nixon, who won 49 states.
McGovern carried only Massachusetts and the District
of Columbia, for 17 electoral votes.
-At first it was called the Watergate Caper.
Five men, apparently caught in the act of burglarizing and
bugging Democratic Headquarters in Washington.
But the episode grew steadily more sinister.
No longer a caper but the Watergate Affair, escalating
finally into charges of a high level campaign of political
sabotage and espionage apparently unparalleled in
American history.
The charges center about a man whose very name
in Italian is secrets.
[inaudible]
reports.
MALE SPEAKER [OFFSCREEN]: Donald Segretti.
Reports in major newspapers say White House aides
recruited Segretti for secret intelligence work and dirty
tricks against the Democrats.
Segretti went to college with several men now
in the White House.
He was particularly close with Dwight Chapin, and several
press reports document recent links
between Chapin and Segretti.
A grand jury is investigating.
WARREN BURGER [OFFSCREEN]: I, Richard
Nixon, do solemnly swear--
RICHARD NIXON [OFFSCREEN]: I, Richard
Nixon, do solemnly swear--
WARREN BURGER [OFFSCREEN]: --that I will faithfully
execute the office of President
of the United States--
RICHARD NIXON [OFFSCREEN]: --that I will faithfully
execute the office of President
of the United States--
WARREN BURGER [OFFSCREEN]: --and will, to
the best of my ability--
RICHARD NIXON [OFFSCREEN]: --and will, to
the best of my ability--
WARREN BURGER [OFFSCREEN]: --preserve, protect, and
defend the Constitution of the United States.
RICHARD NIXON [OFFSCREEN]: --preserve, and protect, and
defend the Constitution of the United States.
-So help me, God.
[music - "hail to the chief"]
DWIGHT CHAPIN [OFFSCREEN]: Phone rings, it's John Dean.
And he said, have you given any thought to what you're
going to do next?
And I said, John, what in the world are you
trying to tell me?
And he said, well, I think you need to figure out what, what
you're going to do next.
And I said, does Bob know this?
And he said, Bob asked me to talk to you.
I could not believe it.
So the next day I flew up to Camp David.
And Bob met me, and we went over to one of the cabins, and
talked, and we were both crying.
And he said that it looked like I was going to be a
political problem to the president because of all the
Segretti stuff, and this guy Sam Ervin
may hold some hearings.
And, therefore, it's probably better, for your career and
everything else, if you move on.
I mean, it was just horrible.
I, I, I-- there's nothing that can describe how I felt.
So I sucked it up.
Said, yes, sir.
Went into the men's room to get myself kind of
straightened up, and there is the Attorney General of the
United States, Richard Kleindienst,
bawling like a baby.
He had just met with Ehrlichman.
I'm thinking to myself, this thing's surreal.
I mean, I can't believe this.
So I went back, got on the helicopter, and started
figuring out my life.
-Leon Jaworski said, "if the American people had not
demanded action in the Watergate scandal, it might
have grown into outrages as great as those in Nazi
Germany."
-Well, here again, you're, you're into this, this verbal
excess thing that it, it just seems to me is, is, uh, uh,
easy to do after the fact.
-Question.
What was the mentality--
what was the mindset in the Nixon White
House that led to Watergate?
-Watergate didn't lead from the--
didn't come from the Nixon White House, and I don't think
there was any mindset that led to Watergate.
-Well, you--
the president is out of office.
Men in the Nixon White House went to jail.
What was the mindset--
what, what happened--
-That's the problem.
I--
I don't know what happened.
-The burglary had nothing to do with Richard Nixon at the
time that it occurred.
If he had kept distance between himself
and that whole episode--
he didn't know about that in advance, I'm persuaded.
I've never heard anybody come forward with any
evidence that he did.
If he had kept distance between himself and that
episode, and just said, you know, those guys did it,
they're going to have to take their punishment.
That is what could have saved Richard Nixon, I'm persuaded.
A little, little quick surgery.
But he was the compulsive minutia man.
He had to get involved.
He had to-- he had to dabble in this, in this, uh, um, uh,
conspiratorial, um, uh, spy stuff.
And he pulled it all into his office.
-What's the dumbest thing you did?
-The dumbest thing I did was, was not to go to him when I
realized this, and say, look, if you don't go out there and
make a clean breast of this thing, I'm going out to the
press room, and I'm going to tell them everything I know
about this.
And then I'm going to walk out of here.
MALE SPEAKER [OFFSCREEN]: Do you think you'd have the
courage to do that?
-Well, obviously, I didn't.
I just was, I was not playing with a full deck.
I just didn't know, at the time, one--
that there were tapes.
Two-- that he was as deeply involved as he was.
[rewinding tape]
MALE SPEAKER [OFFSCREEN]: Ladies and gentlemen,
President Nixon has requested time on the networks this
evening for a report on Vietnam.
-Good evening.
I have asked for this radio and television time tonight
for the purpose of announcing that we, today, have concluded
an agreement to end the war and bring peace with honor in
Vietnam and in Southeast Asia.
The following statement is being issued at this moment in
Washington and Hanoi.
At 12:30 Paris time today, January 23, 1973, the
agreement on ending the war and restoring peace in Vietnam
was initialled by Dr. Henry Kissinger on behalf of the
United States and special adviser Le Duc Tho on behalf
of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
Let us consecrate this moment by resolving together to make
the peace we have achieved a peace that will last.
Thank you, and good evening.
-Senate Democrats have chosen North Carolina's Sam Ervin to
investigate the Watergate bugging case.
The committee would have full subpoena power and a half
million dollar budget.
-When it was learned today that some of the Watergate
conspirators had been involved in illegal actions relating to
the Pentagon Papers case, the whole affair took on a new,
and more sinister, air.
MALE SPEAKER [OFFSCREEN]: Two of the convicted Watergate
conspirators, Howard Hunt and Gordon Liddy, burglarized the
offices of a psychiatrist of defendant Daniel Ellsberg to
get files on Ellsberg.
-The message of Watergate, as I read it, is the same as the
message of the Pentagon Papers.
That from the eyes of people who work for the president,
all law stops at the White House fence.
-The entire political system, uh, the entire standard of
politics, uh, in the country has reached an all time low.
-The president, and his cabinet, and his
administration owe this country an explanation, first
of all, and, secondly, an apology.
-I don't respect the type of journalism, the shabby
journalism that is being practiced by "The Washington
Post."
-Informed sources say it was the Watergate prosecution that
set off the recent series of explosions, and that there are
further time bombs in President Nixon's hands.
JOHN EHRLICHMAN [OFFSCREEN]: We're in, uh, late April of
1973, and I'm really getting beat up in the press.
Uh, we're going to make it.
Yeah, let me get up here to the door, and then I'll--
OK.
Excuse me.
There we are.
I'm going to, uh, be following the unvarying practice of
having no comment on this matter until its final
disposition.
I have delegations of FBI agents in and out of my office
all the time.
And all of a sudden it has dawned on me that I have a
very serious problem, that Richard Nixon has a very
serious problem, that Haldeman and a lot of other people have
serious problems.
-The president flew south to look at flood damage, and
dedicate a Naval training station in Mississippi to
Senator John Stennis.
In the presidential party were HR Haldeman and John
Ehrlichman.
JOHN EHRLICHMAN [OFFSCREEN]: We're on Air Force One.
We were going off to, uh, dedicate a John Stennis
memorial rocket launcher or something in Mississippi.
And I'm standing on the flight deck, and it occurred to me
for about 30 seconds that I could crash this airplane, and
that would put an end to everybody's problems--
mine, and Nixon's, and Haldeman's, and everybody,
everybody who was aboard.
I stepped off that airplane, and usually the drill is
Richard Nixon steps off the airplane and all the cameras
click away, and all that.
He got off-- nobody paid any attention to him.
I got off, and then, boy, you know, they were all taking,
uh, mugshots.
The very last conversation I had with him there, we were
talking about this break-in in California, the Ellsberg
psychiatrist break-in.
And he said, I didn't know about that, did I?
And I had to, I had to indicate to him that he did
know about it.
JOHN EHRLICHMAN [OFFSCREEN]: Now, I didn't know there was a
taping system in the room at the time.
Uh, since then it's occurred to me that he, he was talking
for the record, among other things.
But, at the same time, I--
I'm convinced he really didn't know the difference between
what was true and what wasn't true at any given moment for a
long time [inaudible].
And he could, he could persuade
himself of almost anything--
which is kind of too bad.
RICHARD NIXON [OFFSCREEN]: Hello?
RICHARD NIXON [OFFSCREEN]: Yeah.
FEMALE SPEAKER [OFFSCREEN]: Thank you.
There you are.
WALTER CONKRITE [OFFSCREEN]: Good evening.
President Nixon moved at the highest level today to cleanse
the White House of the taint of the Watergate scandal.
-The president has asked me to announce that he has today
received and accepted the resignation of two of his
closest friends, and most trusted assistants, in the
White House.
-In their statements of resignation, Haldeman and
Ehrlichman blamed many of their problems on the press.
Whether the president plans to incorporate any such statement
in his nationwide address tonight is unknown.
-Today, in one of the most difficult decisions of my
presidency, I accepted the resignations of two of my
closest associates in the White House--
Bob Haldeman, John Ehrlichman--
two of the finest public servants it has been my
privilege to know.
I want to stress that, in accepting these resignations,
I mean to leave no implication whatever of personal
wrongdoing on their part.
And I leave no implication tonight of implication on the
part of others who have been charged in this matter.
God bless America, and God bless each and
every one of you.
-Dwight Chapin, President Nixon's former appointment
secretary, today was found guilty of lying to the
Watergate grand jury investigating political
sabotage during the 1972 presidential campaign.
-I will never, ever, under any circumstance, have a regret
for any contribution, or any hardships, or anything else,
that have come out of the work that I have done, uh, with
Richard Nixon.
I loved what I did, and it was very important to me.
And, and I think these friendships just, you know,
are golden, and they still exist.
-John Ehrlichman, President Nixon's domestic affairs
adviser, is behind bars tonight, the highest ranking
former Nixon aide to go to prison so far.
-For myself, I went through a process of being just
absolutely stripped bare.
I woke up one day realizing that there was nothing left.
There just really wasn't anything.
And it occurred to me that there might be an opportunity
in all of that to do it over again simpler and better.
FEMALE SPEAKER [OFFSCREEN]: HR "Bob" Haldeman, convicted for
his part in the Watergate scandal, is here to see his
daughter graduate from law school.
On Wednesday, Haldeman reports to the federal prison in
Lompoc, California, to begin serving a two and a half to
eight year sentence.
-I've spent five years in a legal defense against, uh,
first of all an investigation, and then a, a
charge, then a trial--
MALE SPEAKER [OFFSCREEN]: Yeah.
---and then a year and a half in prison.
All of that time, had to work on my defense.
The time is, is here to, uh, to stop defending, at least on
my part, and to start looking ahead.
There's a lot more to my life than Watergate.
There's a lot more to my life than politics.
[MUSIC - BARBARA FOSTER, "SAN CLEMENTE'S NOT THE SAME"]
-Convicted Watergate cover-up conspirator John Ehrlichman is
out of a job.
The one time White House aide to former President Richard
Nixon has ended his brief career as an ice cream
pitchman on television.
By all accounts, the ad campaign
was simply a meltdown.
-Try this stuff.
It's unbelievable.
And believe me, [LAUGHING] I'm an expert on that subject.
-The California ice cream company that ran the ad said
consumer response was so negative the Ehrlichman
commercials were being taken off the air immediately.